Some of the Public Services 

of 

Honorable Philander Chase Knox 



SPEECH 

of 

Hon. James Francis Burke 

before the 

Pennsylvania Delegation 
in Congress 

on 

Wednesday, December 4 
1907 






bintiKihuC* 



Gentlemen of the Pennsylvania Delegation : 

Theodore Roosevelt, than whom no man Hving has had 
wider opportunities of observation or greater abihty to ac- 
curately appreciate and correctly describe the character of 
man needed in the solution of the many perplexing problems 
that confront our people, never coined more convincing and 
conclusive sentences than when in a public speech he de- 
scribed the Honorable Philander Chase Knox to the people 
of the United States in these words : 

"As we face these infinitely difficult problems, let us 
keep in mind that though we need the highest qualities 
of the intellect in order to work out proper schemes 
for their solution, yet we need a thousand times more, 
what counts for many, many times as much as intellect 
— we need character. .. 

"We need common sense, common honesty and reso- 
lute courage. JVe need what Mr. Knox lias shozmt : 
the character that will refuse to be hurried into any 
unwise or precipitate movement by any clamor, whether 
hysterical or demagogic, and on the other hand, the 
character that will refuse to be frightened out of a 
movement by any pressure, still less by any threat, ex- 
press or implied." 

WoRTPiY OF Every Word. 

In the light of present needs these w'ords seem to bear 
the very impress of inspiration, ^^et, however appropriate 
the time, however apt the description, however great the 



President, however generous the impulse of him who uttered 
them or gratifying to the friends of the great Pennsylva- 
nian of whom he spoke, we find the striking force and su- 
preme felicity of it all in the fact that it was but one of 
many expressions of a kindred character which the Chief 
Magistrate of the Nation has found it proper to make re- 
garding the achievements of the most helpful companion he 
has known in the greatest crusade that was ever waged 
against evils organized and existing in the name and under 
the forms of law. 

Ambitious that these great problems should be perma- 
nently solved and that these great policies of our great Pres- 
ident should be perpetuated, the Pennsylvania delegation on 
a former occasion similar to the present, suggested Penn- 
sylvania's favorite son as the logical successor of Theodore 
Roosevelt as President of the United States. 

Loyalty of His Native State. 

The substantial and thoughtful approval with which the 
proposal was met in all sections of the country was repeated 
and enlarged upon when the Pennsylvania Republican State 
convention, composed of delegates elected for the first time 
under the law by a direct vote of the people, unanimously 
endorsed our candidate for the Chief Magistracy of the 
Nation. 

By way of ratification and furnishing additional evidences 
of the genin'ne enthusiasm and absolute unanimity of senti- 



ment back of this great proposition, the RepubHcan State 
League, the RepubHcan County and City Committees, and in 
fact all branches of the party throughout the Commonwealth 
have since endorsed the little giant whom every proud and 
patriotic Pennsylvanian hopes and believes will be the next 
President of the United States. 

Earnestness of Expression. 

While we believe that there is not a single section of the 
Union that is not rich enough in tradition, powerful enough 
[n interest and patriotic enough in purpose to justify it in 
making a legitimate effort to name the next President of the 
United States, yet we hold that the pride of states and the 
politics of sections are secondary matters in affairs of such 
vital concern to the whole people. 

Main Consideration The Man. 

The main consideration should be the man. The wrong 
man can not live in the right state and the right mnn can not 
live in the wrong state when it comes to choosing the Presi- 
dent of a Republic composed of all the states. 

The evils of sustaining geographic lines and sectional 
prejudices in American politics are so manifold and so mani- 
fest that every citizen whose patriotism is broad enough to 
embrace the Union is opposed to the unhealthy doctrine that 
permits the doubts or certainties of local situations to domi- 
nate 85,000,000 people in the choice of their Chief Execu- 
tive. 



Provincialism has no place in the Presidential politics of 
this Republic. 

Era of Great Problems. 

This epoch is crowded with vital problems and great un- 
dertakings, and fraught with more than the ordinary re- 
sponsibilities that attach to public office and the performance 
of public duties. 

Only the trained warrior against existing evils and the 
trusted conservator of constitutional rights should be al- 
lowed on guard by the American people. 

Never before were they less inclined to experiment in 
manning the ship of state. 

In the domain of public duty new pathways have been 
blazed ; new light has been shed upon constitutional prob- 
lems, a more exacting public spirit has succeeded, and more 
critical responsibilities than ever confront the public ser- 
vants of the present and the future. 

Only Tried Material Wanted. 

To the discharge of these responsibilities the people will 
insist upon calling the most capable minds and the most 
courageous characters in the arena of American public ser- 
vice, and, with supreme confidence in her ability to produce 
the man who, in a greater measure than any other living 
American, possesses the attributes that should make him the 
(vorthy successor of 1 heodore Roosevelt, the Keystone State 



has presented to the nation the man who in Cabinet and 
Senate has proven his unquestioned capacity to rank with 
the greatest statesmen of his day. 

Words From the White House. 

In support of this assertion I might quote a portion of 
the letter made pubHc at the White House when the Presi- 
dent gave reluctant consent to the resignation of his faithful 
friend and wise counsellor who had been called to a seat in 
the Senate of the United States. 

"My dear Mr. Knox : 

"* * * To your high professional qualifications 
you have added unflagging zeal and an entire indiffer- 
ence to every consideration save the honor and interest 
of the people at large. Many great and able men have 
preceded you in the office you hold, but there is none 
among them whose administration has left so deep a 
niark for good upon the country's development. 

"Under you it has been literally true that the mighti- 
est and humblest in the land have alike had it brought 
home to them, that each was sure of the law's protec- 
tion while he did right, and that neither could hope to 
defy the law if he did wrong. In what you have done 
you have: given proof not merely of the profound learn- 
ing of the jurist, but of the bold initiative and wide 
grasp of the statesman. You have deeply affected for 
good the development of our entire political system in 
its relations to the industrial and economic tendencies 
of the time. 

"For all you have done I thank you most earnestly, 



not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of the 
public whom you have served with such single-minded 

devotion." 

And now that we may ascertain some of the acts that 
afforded a foundation for the President's splendid tribute, 
let us glance for a moment over the record of the man of 
whom he wrote in terms of a character such as he has never 
written of any other living American. 

During the last few years the disclosure of evils has been 
so widespread, the application of remedies has been so rapid 
and cures in many instances have been so complete in mat- 
ters of the most vital importance to the welfare of the 
people and the preservation of the fundamental purposes 
of our government, that we are apt to lose sight of both 
methods and men in the bewildering swiftness of the trans- 
formation. 

Central Figures in Contest. 

While through it all the central, commanding figure in 
the crusade was a brave and brilliant President, as the strug- 
gles practically all involved the rehabilitation and enforce- 
ment of old, and the framing and enactment of new laws, 
the arm upon which he rested, the mind upon which he 
most relied was that of his trusted personal friend and great 
Attorney-General, wdio with unflinching courage and uner- 
ring clearness pointed out the pathways over which the 
journey must be made if the eternal principles of justice 



were to prevail in the obliteration of great evils and the 
elevation of the functions of the Federal Government above 
the atmosphere of doubt. 

Champions in the Conflict. 

The extensive and startling growth of combinations deal- 
ing in the necessaries of life and engaged in interstate com- 
merce, accompanied by a bold defiance of Federal authority, 
crystalized in 1902 in a conflict between two schools of 
thought, one led by arrogant combinations of capital and 
the other led by Theodore Roosevelt and Philander Chase 
Knox representing the American people. 

As if encouraged one by the other, in a single year the 
large grain dealers and beef packers of the Middle West en- 
tered into illegal arrangements with the railroads for re- 
bates and discriminating advantages in transportation, which 
gave them a complete monopoly of a business formerly en- 
joyed by a large number of persons over a wide area of ter- 
ritory, and still bolder in conception and broader in purpose 
than all previous attempts at crushing competition came 
the organization of the Northern Securities Company, the 
success of which meant the permanent throttling of trade 
in the great Northwest, and the ultimate control of all the 
great railroad lines of the country by combinations before 
which every shipper would be helpless, and the govern- 
ment itself powerless to promote the thrift or protect the 
interests of its people. 



Blazing New Pathways. 

The supicme test of the right and the efficiency of the 
Federal government to crush this great evil immediately 
followed. Prompt action became necessary along new and 
untried lines, and upon a theory of the Constitution and ex- 
isting laws more comprehensive and courageous than any 
interpretation that had ever before been attempted in the 
actual administration of our system of jurisprudence. 

Attorney-General Knox advised the President that the 
•plenary power of Congress over all kinds of transportation 
and its instrumentalities had not been exhausted by the 
Sherman Act, nor by the Interstate Commerce Act; that in 
his opinion the Sherman Act did reach the Northern Secur- 
ities situation, and that immediate steps should be taken to 
secure interpretations of ail existing laws, with a view to 
confirming the theory of the completeness of the power of 
the Federal government in its application to the situation, 
and as a guide for new legislation. 

For the purpose of at once allaying the apprehension of 
the millions of thrifty Americans interested in seeing these 
gigantic evils stricken down in their early growth, the At- 
torney-General in a speech before the Pittsburg Chamber of 
Commerce, on October 14, 1902, elaborated upon what was 
to be the attitude of the administration in the crisis that had 
developed. 



Epoch Making Speech. 

The keynote of that speech was the great underlying prin- 
ciple upon which rested the successful struggle against dis- 
crimination, that followed. 

Language could not be more lucid than that in which 
Mr. Knox described the necessary remedy. He said : 

"Corporations serving the public as carriers and in 
similar capacities should be compelled to keep the ave- 
nues of commerce free and open to all upon the same 
terms and to observe the laiv as to its injunctions 
against stilling competition. Moreover, corporations 
upon which the people depend for the necessaries of 
life should be required to conduct their business so as 
regularly and reasonably to supply the public 
needs. * * * 

"If these serious evils were eradicated and a higher 
measure of administrative responsibility required in 
corporate officers, a long step would be taken toward 
allaying the reasonable apprehension that the unchecked 
aggression of the trusts will result in practical mo- 
nopoly of the imj)ortant business of the country." 

As a result of the subsequent enforcement of this policy 
the monopolies created by secret and preferential rates for 
railroad transportation were successfully assailed in the Cir- 
cuit Court of the United States at Chicago and Kansas City 
in suits in equity begun b}' the United States to enjoin 
against the violation of law prohibiting rebates and dis- 
criminations, and for the first time establishing the right of 



10 



the Attorney-General to appear for large numbers of people 
and sections of the country affected by a remedial law, a 
right which has since been made doubly certain by a statute 
enacted at the suggestion of this same Attomev-General. 

Xo Constitutional Amendment Required. 

At the inception of this governmental crusade against 
corporate abuses, it was contended by many eminent states- 
men and jurists throughout the country that the cure hy 
only througli the channel of constitutional amendment — a 
process so cumbersome, remote and uncertain that the very 
thought suggested dangerous delay, if not utter despair. 

But doubt was dispelled and confidence created when the 
Attorney-General, whom the President and the people had 
come to look upon as their guiding genius through the wil- 
derness of constitutional confusion, said in that same ad- 
dress : 

"If the Sherman Act exhausts the power of Con- 
gress over monopolies, the American people find them- 
selves hopelessly impotent, facing a situation fraught 
with the most alarming possibilities v.ith which neither 
the Federal nor the State governments can deal. 

"Can it be possible that the people of the United 
States, feeling the pressure of undoubted evils, are 
nevertheless totally powerless? Is it true that, al- 
though they know the nature of the wrong and are 
seeking a remedy, the Constitution, os it stands, does 
not permit them to pursue it ; that amendment to that 
charter is first necessary; that the power of Congress 



II 



does not now extend over detriments injuring the en- 
tire body of citizens in their most vital concerns be- 
cause these detriments originate in the states? I do 
not behevc we find ourselves so helpless. When the 
currents of monopoly evil flow out over state lines and 
cover the country, not only entering but largely filling 
the channels of interstate and foreign trade, it will not 
do to say that the evil is beyond the national reach." 

"It would seem monstrous to urge that Congress and 
the executive under its authority are powerless and must 
sit idly by and see the channels of interstate commerce 
made use of to the injury of the people by monopolistic 
combinations." 

Won Confidence of the Country. 

That the confidence of the country was centered in the 
Attorney-General as a result of his apparent mastery of the 
situation was illustrated two months later at the opening of 
the Fifty-Seventh Congress, when he was asked by the late 
lamented Senator Hoar, Chairman of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the Senate, and the Honorable Charles E. Little- 
field. Chairman of the sub-committee of the judiciary of the 
House of Representatives, to forward to these committees 
"Any suggestions that your reflection and experience shall 
suggest as to what further trust legislation may be desir- 
able." 

And it was in reply to these requests that he furnished 
the bold and sweeping suggestion : 

"That as a first step in a policy to be persistently 
pursued until every industry, large and small, in the 



12 



country can be assured of equal rights and opportuni- 
ties, and until the tendency to monopolization of the im- 
portant industries of the country is checked, that all 
discriminating practices affecting interstate trade be 
made offenses to be enjoined and punished." 

In Harmony Witei President. 

In the great railroad rate struggle the harmony of pur- 
pose existing between the President and the Pennsylvania 
Senator is revealed in the statements made by Mr. Justice 
Moody, then Attorney-General, on October 29, 1906, in a 
speech delivered in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, in 
which he said : 

"I think it Providential that your great citizen (Mr. 
Knox), became Attorney-General, and I also think it 
was Providential that you withdrew him and put him 
in another place. For no man was more potential in 
the framing of that law than the Junior Senator from 
Pennsylvania. None stood more firmly at the back of 
President Roosevelt, and I wish to say now that in 
every principle of law involved in that bill there was 
not an iota of difference between Senator Knox and 
myself." 

Results of a Great Speech. 

The far-reaching influence of the speech delivered by Mr. 
Knox, at Pittsburg, on November 3, 1905, in which he out- 
lined the administration's policy and blazed the way for the 
legislation necessary to crush the evils aimed at in the legis- 
lation that followed was attested in the closing debates on 



13 



the Rate Bill when Senator Dolliver, referring to the Penn- 
sylvania Senator and the great service the latter had ren- 
dered, said : 

"In drafting this bill, the framers of it were guided 
very largely by the speech delivered at Pittsburg by 
the Honorable Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Knox), a speech which reads almost like a judgment 
from the Supreme Bench." 

Remedial Legislation Recommended. 

It was Attorney-General Knox who, in 1902, recom- 
mended that in respect to railroad rebates, a penalty should 
be imposed upon the incorporated carrier and the beneficiary 
alike, and that the rights of the courts to restrain such prac- 
tice at the suit of the United States should be provided for 
in new legislation. He recommended that it should be made 
unlawful to transport traffic by carrier subject to the "Act 
to Regulate Commerce" "at any rate less than such car- 
rier's published rate," and that all who participated in the 
violation of such law should be punished. He recommended 
that comprehensive plans should be framed to enable the 
government to secure all the facts bearing upon the organi- 
zation and practice of concerns engaged in interstate and 
foreign commerce essential to a full understanding thereof. 
He recommended the act to speed the final decision of cases 
under the anti-trust law. 

And what is more gratifying to his friends and the people 



14 



than the recommendations which he made is the fact that 
they were promptly acted upon and became laws before the 
expiration of that session of Congress. 

Speedy Justice Secured. 

The Act to expedite the hearing and determination of 
suits under the anti-trust and interstate commerce acts was 
passed February ii, 1903. Under its provisions the North- 
ern Securities case was set down for argument before the 
circuit judges of the Eighth Circuit, and argued in March, 
1903. 

New Department Established. 

On February 14, 1903, the Department of Commerce and 
Labor was created, and in that department the Bureau of 
Corporations established, completing the government's 
power to make investigation into the organization, conduct, 
management and business of all corporations engaged in 
interstate and foreign commerce. 

Interstate Commerce Law Amended. 

Along the line of his suggestions already indicated, and 
pursuant to others which he made. Congress also amended 
the interstate commerce law by providing that anything done 
or omitted to be done by a corporate common carrier subject 
to the Act. which if done by an employee thereof would con- 
stitute a misdemeanor under the law, should also be held 



IB 

to be a misdemeanor committed by such corporation ; and 
furthermore, conferring jurisdiction upon tlie Circuit Courts 
of the United States to restrain by writ of injunction, or 
other appropriate process, departures from published rates, 
or any discriminations forbidden by law ; requiring every 
common carrier subject to the law to publish his tariff rates 
or charges, and to maintain them; making it unlawful for 
any person or corporation to offer, grant, or give, or to 
solicit, accept or receive any rebate, concession or discrimina- 
tion in respect to the transportation of any property in inter- 
state or foreign commerce, whereby such property shall by 
any device v^hatevcr be transported at a less rate than the 
rate published by the carrier; and also making the rate 
published and filed vrith the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion the legal rate. 

It further provided that a prosecution by the government 
under this Act should not exempt the offending carrier from 
suits to recover damages by parties injured. 

It provided also for the production of all books and pa- 
pers, both by carrier and shipper, which directly or indirectly 
relate to the transactions, and the giving of testimony, 
whether such documents tend to criminate the party or not. 

Non-Partisan Testimonial. 

Regarding this constructive legislation, the non-partisan 
Interstate Commerce Commission has declared that : 



16 



"Without further reference to the changes made by 
this amendatory legislation, the Commission feels war- 
ranted in saying that its beneficent bearing became evi- 
dent from the time of its passage. It has proved a 
wise and salutary enactment. It has corrected serious 
defects in the original law and greatly aided the attain- 
ment of some of the purposes for which that law was 
enacted. * * * 

"Indeed, it is believed that never before in the rail- 
road history of this country have tariff rates been so 
well and so generally observed as they are at the present 
time." 

The inseparable identification of Mr. Knox with all these 
measures is proven not only by the recommendations which 
he made from time to time, but by the fact that he prepared 
bills embodying every idea in the legislation enacted for the 
correction of the evils over which the government has gained 
such a signal and splendid triumph; and as a sample of the 
manner in which these bills were treated, it is not amiss to 
state that Mr. Knox's amendment to the Interstate Com- 
merce Act. relating to departures from freight rates "pub- 
lished by the carrier" was inserted by Mr. Elkins with the 
change of but a single word, and is now the most vital part 
of that splendid piece of legislation. 

Beef Trust Broken. 

In the meanwhile, the Department of Justice, under his 
administration, branded as outlaws the combinations of in- 
dependent corporatiotis to fix and maintain extortionate 



17 

prices of meats and drove them, when confronted with over- 
whelming evidence of guilt to the shelter of a demurrer to 
prevent the publicity of the evidence collected by the govern- 
ment. 

His arguments in and personal management of the many 
other great cases which had to do with the testing of laws 
then upon the statute books are too familiar to this body and 
the people at large to require recounting here, but it is mani- 
fest that from the very inception of the crusade against 
those evils which were crushing competition, throttling 
trade, and gradually placing not only the great products of 
the countiy, but the markets in which they were bought and 
sold, and the channels of commerce through which they were 
reached, under the control of evil combinations, which inso- 
lently began to defy the government itself the one staunch 
and sturdy figure who stood unflinching through all the 
struggle, inspiring confidence in his Chief, and bringing vic- 
tory to his people was the great Pennsylvania statesman of 
whose character and achievements the nation is justly proud. 

Record Ratified by Roosevelt. 

In the light of this splendid record it is not difficult to 
understand the earnestness with which Theodore Roosevelt 
declared on October 4. 1906, that — 

"During the last few years the National Government 
has taken very long strides in the direction of exercis- 
ing and securing this adequate control over the great 



18 



corporations, and it was under the leadership of one of 
the most honored public men in our country, one of 
Pennsylvania's most eminent sons, the present Senator 
and then Attorney-General, Knox, that the nczv depar- 
ture was begun." 

It is also manifest from that which I have already related, 
that his argument in the Northern Securities case before the 
Supreme Court, in which he won that memorable victory, 
w^hile of the gravest importance to the nation, was but a 
mere incident attendant upon the great labor he was per- 
forming in outlining and establishing upon an everlasting 
foundation policies that were and are as vital to the mainte- 
nance of the government as any that have ever challenged 
the attention of the nation since it was first established. 

Safety Appliance Law Rescued. 

Nor was his victory over the Beef Trust in the least de- 
gree more important or far-reaching in its consequences 
than was his bold and ingenious move when for the first 
time in the Nation's history he asserted the right of the 
government to intervene in a private damage suit as a result 
of which the defeat of an humble workman, who had sued 
the Southern Pacific Railroad under the Safety Appliance 
Act, was turned into a victory, and the constitutionality of 
that law fraught with such importance to the traveling pub- 
lic, and the great army of railway employes throughout the 
country, was vindicated and sustained. 



10 



Peonage Prosecuted. 

Similarly bold in the initiative and similarly successful 
in the execution was the first prosecution ever instituted 
under the Peonage laws of the United States outside of the 
Territory of New Mexico, when in 1901 this same Attorney- 
General caused the indictment and conviction of those who 
sought to re-establish a species of slavery, which was doubly 
vicious because it based its right to exist upon the law itself. 
This practice of holding poor, ignorant, defenseless negroes 
in involuntary servitude, as a result of the connivance of 
corrupt magistrates and selfish speculators was ended, and 
in the language of a Federal Judge, "The law has been 
thoroughly vindicated and the evil against which it was di- 
rected has been completely crushed." 

Law Triumphs Over Lotteries. 

During his administration also the power of Congress 
under the commerce clause of the Constitution to prohibit 
the carriage from state to state of obnoxious subjects of 
traffic was affirmed by the Supreme Court, and the vicious 
lottery system made a thing of the past. 

Alien Anarchists Deported. 

The right of the Immigration officers under the authority 
of Congress to detain and deport alien anarchists seeking 
entrance into the United States was upheld by the same 
court, and during his administration the Chinese exclusion 



20 

act was defended against renewed attacks upon its constitu- 
tionality. 

The efficiency of the postal system was advanced by de- 
cisions upholding- the power of the Postmaster-General to 
exclude from the mails matters relating to fraudulent 
schemes and lotteries; likewise the constitutionality of the 
so-called oleomargarine law was successfully defended, and 
the interests of the farmers of the country so materially 
advanced. 

Land Frauds Prosecuted. 

The fraudulent acquisition of public lands and the unlaw- 
ful cutting of timber thereon were prosecuted with success. 
Under the law giving the Attorney-General the right to em- 
ploy special counsel in special cases the work of Heney was 
begun and continued under Attorney-General Knox in the 
face of the most influential opposition. 

Postal Frauds Prosecuted. 

It would be difficult to describe a more important work 
and a more gratifying result than that accomplished by the 
Department of Justice during this same Attorney-General's 
administration in the ferreting out and successful prosecu- 
tion of those guilty of the gross frauds in the Post Office 
Department. The prosecutions instituted and the punish- 
ments that followed in these cases were in themselves suffi- 
cient to make his administration of that office more than 



21 



ordinarily notable, and it is safe to say that no other prosecu- 
tions ever had a more far-reaching influence in driving dis- 
honesty from the public service and impressing upon public 
officials the heinous character of the offense that has its 
beginning in the breach of a public trust. 

The Pacific Cable. 

The satisfactory solution of the many problems submitted 
to his department in connection with the establishment of 
the Pacific cable resulted in an arrangement more favorable 
to the United States than that enjoyed at the same cost by 
any other government with reference to any other cable in 
the world. Not only was the commercial public protected 
by a provision guaranteeing reasonable rates, but the gov- 
ernment messages are transmitted at rates fixed by the gov- 
ernment itself, and in time of war its exclusive use by the 
government is conceded and granted. 

In addition to all these features the government may take 
title to it at any time it wishes upon a valuation to be fixed 
by arbitrators chosen in the usual way. 

In realms in which possibly no other statesman who ever 
held the office of Attorney-General of the United States was 
called upon to assert himself in critical emergencies, the 
same great intellect proved its capacity to immediately grasp 
and control the situations with which it was confronted. 



22 

Gaynor and Greene Extradited. 

In the famous cases of Gaynor and Greene, charged with 
the embezzlement of large sums of money in connection 
with the Savannah Harbor contracts, when they were cap- 
tured in Quebec, and conveyed to Montreal, in the fastest 
boat the United States Government could secure, and the 
attempt of this country to extradite them was temporarily 
thwarted by the Canadian Court, which rendered a judg- 
ment discharging the prisoners, and the controversy had 
apparently ended in defeat for our government, our Attor- 
ney-General taking issue with many of the greatest lawyers 
of his time, and acting in direct conflict with the opinion of 
Sir Edward Clark, the leader of the English Bar, directed 
an appeal to the Privy Council in London, as a result of 
which in February, 1905, that tribunal rendered a decision 
in favor of the United States, and for the first time estab- 
lishing the doctrine for which Attorney-General Knox con- 
tended. This later resulted in the extradition, trial and 
conviction of Gaynor and Greene, the story of which is too 
familiar to need recounting here. 

At one stage of this proceeding the Attorney-General was 
offered $600,000 to compromise the case, but he replied that 
the government did not need the money, but did need and 
intended to punish the defendants. 

Panama's Perplexing Problems. 
The other instance in which the Attorney-General proved 



23 

his' great capacity for great duties was the handHng of all 
the intricate legal matters pertaining to the acquirement of 
the title to the Panama Canal. Probably no other great 
undertaking in the world's history was attended in its in- 
fancy by the constant presentation of more intricate ques- 
tions involving treaty rights, national and international obli- 
gations and the doctrine of private contracts, and all of them 
so intermingled and intertwined that it seems almost im- 
possible to conceive of the successful strategy and substantial 
safety with which every step was taken and every American 
object attained. 

An additional gratifying factor in connection with this 
incident was the fact that while matters of this magnitude 
have usually cost other governments sums reaching into mil- 
lions, in this case it was conducted solely by Attorney-Gen- 
eral Knox and his assistants, in this country, in Panama, 
and in Paris, at a cost to the United States Government of 
less than $4,000. 

A Fitting Reward. 

With this record to his credit, and with every line of it 
written into the history of his country, and with his splendid 
capacity proven for every great emergency, what more profit- 
able act can his people perform with reference to their own 
welfare than to place him at the head of this great Republic, 
to which his heart has been so near, and to which his service 
has been so great ? 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 900 677 ft 



